ROBOTS & ELECTRONIC BRAINS

Stewart Home, Comes in your face/Cyber-sadism (Sabotage Editions) both CD

Cult author Stewart Home re-lives his punk rock past by recording a clutch of songs he wrote in the late 70's/early 80's and they're deliberately dumbed-down to get your back up. Try titles like "Necrophile", "My baby's got syphillis" and "Towards a gay Communism" that weave political ideology, sloganeering and a hefty dose of the vernacular into 12 tracks of sludgy, spiteful, couplachord gutter punk. Twelve more of the same vintage from The Dolphins, Finland's finest recorded pissed in 1981 and assorted odds and sods make up the 70 minutes of "Comes in your face".

"Cyber-sadism" finds Home wearing his stand-up hat and reading from his short stories. As with the songs, there's a crude butting-together of obscenity, religious, literary, political and philosophical references, conspiracy theory and sharp observation. It's both offensive and provocative, as in "Audience baiting" where, disappointed by the amount of verbal abuse he's getting, he attempts to wind up the punters at a Liverpool show by first giving them advice on how to heckle and then laughing at their attempts. The short stories are more entertaining with the highpoint being a track which plays two whispered stalking monologues simultaneously---one in each channel---and is truly disturbing.

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